


My Heart is Gold and My Hands are Cold

by ken_ichijouji (dommific)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst and Romance, Bearded Victor Nikiforov, Blood, Character Death, Gun Violence, Long-Haired Katsuki Yuuri, M/M, Minor Character Death, References to Off Screen Character Deaths, Swords, Virus, genre typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-29 17:09:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13931532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dommific/pseuds/ken_ichijouji
Summary: Yuuri remembers when the sky once was blue, before the world changed for the worse. The memory grows fainter each day, but he can still remember.





	My Heart is Gold and My Hands are Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neck_romancer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neck_romancer/gifts).



> A commission for neck! I was asked for survival horror and Victuuri. I'm told this is quite bleak, and I'm...IDK well it's genre-appropriate.
> 
> If you're wondering "where did they get all these guns in Japan," assume the Yakuza and police got taken out early.
> 
> Neck, paying me for this: I want survival horror, like zombies.  
> My brain: Okay but what if Blood+ meets Walking Dead.
> 
> Clearly I follow direction well. (If you want to be spoiled for the off-screen/minor character deaths, check the end notes please.)
> 
> Neck, I hope you like this! 
> 
> Title and excepts from Halsey's "Gasoline."

_You can't wake up, this is not a dream; you're part of a machine, you are not a human being._  
_With your face all made up, living on a screen — low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline._  


The memory grows fainter as time passes, but Yuuri remembers before the sky turned red.

The day he returned from Detroit after graduating and running from his loss in Sochi was the last day the sky was blue. A cold snap hung in the air despite the blooming sakura, and Yuuri knelt at the family butsudan to pay his respects to Vicchan. Worlds began that day in Tokyo, and Yuuri excused himself to vent his disappointment at the Ice Castle.

The sky dawned red when he woke the next morning. Snow drifted slowly through pink mist and burgundy clouds while Yuuri’s family huddled in front of the television in the common area of the inn. Minako joined them, the broadcast taking her from tipsy to sober in no time flat.

Minako ended up never returning to her flat. She lives in Yu-Topia now with the few of them that are left.

A year ago, Yuuri had never even held a weapon. A year ago, Yuuri was mourning his dog and his career. Now, Yuuri doesn’t cross the bridge from the inn to town and the Ice Castle after dark and photographs have joined Vicchan of people he’s lost, Axel and Lutz included.

 _Hematophagous_ , the NIID said. Victims turn _hematophagous_. 

Yuuri scoffs as he wipes some blood off the sword he now carries when he gathers food or medical supplies. No one possessed the cruelty to cut them off from fresh water or power, but social media is dead and gone since two weeks after it began. 

It’d have saved everyone a lot of stress had the NIID spoken plainly: the virus turns the infected into _vampires_. There's no cure since the decision was unilaterally to doom them without any aid.

It’s been a year, and he can barely recall when the sky was blue.

*****

The sky goes from deep burgundy to scarlet like a sailor’s warning, and Yuuri covers himself in military-grade canvas. He wraps a scarf around his face, leaving only his eyes uncovered. His sword’s on his back, his Glocks are within easy reach. He may have to venture to another city for more ammunition soon.

Mari smokes rarely these days since cigs are growing sparse. She has one now, lit and hanging out of her mouth with a too-long cherry. “Be careful.”

Yuuri nods; she used to do this until she lost her left eye. Her depth perception isn’t good anymore. Besides, Yuuri wanted to carry his weight. He takes off towards town, crossing the bridge on foot as he keeps an eye out for anything off and listens for any tails.

He makes it. The remaining shops with goods are empty of people. He shatters a cracked glass pane with his elbow, unlocks the door, ignores the alarm, and grabs what he can. The non-mayo onigiri are best, as well as the crisps and candy. There’s instant curry ramen bowls, and he grabs as many as will fit in his sack.

The memory of the aroma of his mother’s katsudon is so potent it's almost real, but he shoves it down. Sentimentality got her killed; he’ll end up with a similar fate.

Yuuri has two full duffles. It takes longer to walk with all the supplies, but cars attract the wrong attention. His eyes turn to the Ice Castle, now boarded up with peeling posters on the outside. The banner wishing him luck in the Sochi GPF was never taken down, and the colors are faded and washed out in the red light from the haze.

Yuuri takes too long contemplating what once was.

He’s careless, amateurish, and it allows someone to grip the back of his jacket. They’re blocking the sword so he grabs a gun from his hip, removes the safety, and uses his free hand to slam them against the wall in a chokehold. The infected can only be reliably killed when their heads are chopped off but cause enough blood loss from some strategic bullet wounds, and they'll go down enough for him to get away.

He’s looking into clear, green-blue eyes that are wide, scared, and a little furious. The person is taller and thin from lack of nutrients (though Yuuri is too), and their eyes are taken aback. “I’m human,” says the voice from beneath a thick balaclava — it's a man’s voice with some kind of unclear accent. 

His eyes are all Yuuri can see, like the sea before it mirrored the sanguine sky. Yuuri puts his safety back on, but he doesn’t lower the gun. The man’s lashes are a deep pewter, and Yuuri recognizes the distinctive shape of his eyes. 

_Impossible._ It can't be. He lives in St. Petersburg, he’d — 

Shit.

“They didn’t let you leave.” Yuuri holsters his gun and steps back. He holds up both hands.

Blue eyes narrow as the balaclava comes down. He is definitely Victor Nikiforov, though he now has a decent beard with longer, shaggier hair. “Where would I have gone? Russia’s just as bad, if not worse.”

Yuuri bares his own face as realization strikes him like lightning. “They lied,” he says. “They said it was just us…they lied to keep us from trying to band with others or cooperate--”

“I know you,” Victor says, breaking through Yuuri's speculation. 

Yuuri gives him a weird look.

“Yuuri Katsuki,” Victor continues with recognition and warmth filling his gaze. “The Grand Prix Final in Sochi, we competed together.”

It burns to remember when Yuuri’s biggest problem was placing 6th in an elite athletic competition. His worries were so small then.

“Your hair grew long…you look so…how are you?” Victor finishes, and Yuuri’s once-idol sounds like some kind of awkward dork, shy and hesitant. 

Yuuri doesn’t think before he says, “Could be better.”

Victor nods, his eyes locking into Yuuri’s like he’ll die if he stops looking. “I can relate.”

Victor will be another mouth to feed; they already struggle as it is, and they’re going to run low on options for food besides the fish Yuuko catches twice a week soon. Yuuri should tell Victor he’s on his own. After all, he seems prepared for it. “You need shelter?” Yuuri asks instead against his common sense.

“I’ve been running for a year,” Victor replies. 

That's a yes.

A pitiful, low whine causes Yuuri to grab the gun a second time as he looks for the source. A standard poodle in desperate need of a haircut who's leaner than the last photos Yuuri saw when Instagram still meant something is just behind Victor in a defensive crouch. “Makkachin,” Yuuri calls.

Makkachin waves her tail back and forth with a smile, though her spine doesn't relax. 

Victor has a camping backpack with a second set of sacks strapped over Makkachin’s haunches, probably for water. She’s an extra mouth too, but even Yuuri hasn’t hardened so much he'll leave Makkachin on her own. “Follow me,” he says. The foraging always takes a while since Yuuri has to go to multiple stores. The produce is all rotten at this point, but he has a standing bargain with a family on this end of Hasetsu for a share of Yuuko’s fish, combini goods, and cigarettes. They get eggs, persimmons, burdock, and sweet potatoes in return. 

They walk together with Makkachin flanking Victor’s right side like a bodyguard back to the onsen. It’s mid-afternoon so they're safe this time, and Yuuri gives the code. Mari looks over his shoulder at Victor, then gives Yuuri a raised eyebrow. Before Yuuri can make an excuse, Mari softens. “Come on, then,” she says. They slide in the partially-opened door including Makkachin, and Mari barricades it once they’re inside. 

“Hello, my name is—” Victor begins, stalling when Mari waves.

“I know who you are.” She jerks her head up the stairs towards Yuuri’s room. “You were all over his walls.”

Yuuri sighs. “Mari.”

Mari ignores him, giving Victor a look. “What can you do? If you’re staying, you have to pull your weight.”

There’s a rifle on Victor’s bag with the hiking pack. Makkachin’s not carrying water; she has boxes of ammo. “Point defense,” Victor answers with enough seriousness Yuuri takes a step back out of reflex.

“We’re mostly safe since they can’t cross the water,” Mari thinks out loud. “Though—“ Before she finishes her thought, Yuuko walks by with Loop. They give Victor nods before blatantly staring. Victor returns the nod with a sharp smile. 

Neither Mari nor Yuuri bring up Axel and Lutz. Victor will figure it out later when he sees their old family pictures. 

“Can you teach us?” Mari says. “Loop’s old enough she needs to help.”

Victor nods. “I can manage it, yeah. Mama taught me well enough that I should be able to copy her.”

Mari nods. “Welcome home, then.”

There’s a mixture of bitterness and anticipation within his words when Victor replies in a hoarse whisper, “ _Tadaima_.”

*****

The room Yuuri now uses belonged to his parents until the day it didn't. He feels too closed in when he tries to sleep in his childhood room, and when the Nishigoris joined them, it made sense to let Loop have it as her own space. Her parents have a banquet room turned bedroom suite, Mari kept her old room, and Minako converted the private family den into her domain.

There’s not really room for Victor and Makkachin unless they sleep in another banquet hall, but that's on the ground floor which isn't really safe. They have spare bedrolls so the floor in Yuuri’s new room can accommodate them. Most humans go to bed and rise early, and the Yu-Topia safe house is no exception. 

The hot spring is a boon not many others have, and Yuuri took time after giving Victor a tour to soak. The blood caked and dried under his fingernails is a permanent fixture. He changed into threadbare, pilling sweats gifted by Mizuno two years ago, and as he sits on his mattress, sixty pounds of overgrown curly fur land to his left. 

Makkachin looks hopeful and sweet with bright brown eyes that sparkle with affection. Dogs are too good for the hellhole that the world’s become, this beautiful girl in particular. She turns in a circle several times before curling up into a ball, trembling so hard the bed shakes before she decides it's safe. Makkachin snuffles in her sleep, the deep and still slumber of a creature that finally can unwind.

“She doesn’t rest much,” Victor says as he enters with a bedroll under one arm. His Turino Olympics pants have seen better days thanks to mud and fraying hems, his beard desperately needs trimming, and there are far more lines around his eyes than in Sochi. His weathered beauty makes Yuuri long for some kind of wish-granting magic to undo this sea of waking nightmares. “She guards me while I nap. We’re otherwise on the move.”

“Mm,” Yuuri says. He pets her, fingers entwining in the messy, overgrown ringlets. He’d forgotten how much he loves dogs. He’s forgotten so many simple things.

Victor sits on her other side. He has a Bowie knife within reach. “You know, I waited for you to call after the banquet.”

Yuuri shrugs. Dancing, disappointment, begging his idol to be his coach, fireworks illuminating riverglass blue eyes, the first smile in years that didn’t seem frozen on Victor’s face... “I didn’t remember until a few months ago. Mari and I got drunk when we lost our parents, and state-dependent memory brought it back.”

Victor seems far too soft for this brave new world to the point Yuuri avoids his gaze as he says, “I had some kind of recurring dream that told me to bring Makkachin to Worlds. Mama used to watch her when I'd travel, but this last time I had some kind of...I think I knew I'd never get home deep down. After the...well, _after_ , I kept thinking of what you said, your family’s hot spring...I was almost out of hope I’d find you.”

Before Yuuri couldn’t afford luxuries like a Mercedes or a chef’s tasting course with a starting prince in the hundreds; what he can’t afford now is this, the possibility of Victor staying, becoming _more_ , the two of them thriving and forming a whole instead of parts. Yuuri has done so many hard things like putting childhood friends down when they got infected (putting _Axel and Lutz_ down because Yuuko and Takeshi couldn’t and Mari lost her eye before he intervened), that when he crawls to Victor pressing their mouths together in a soft, open kiss, it’s so easy that he decides it’s some kind of violent, cruel trap.

It goes no further before there’s a shout and a loud crash from out by the springs. There’s a shattering of the glass by the now-desolate indoor baths immediately after, like someone shoved their first through a pane.

Yuuri knows what it means. 

Some of the infected are on this side of the water, and they haven’t isolated or eradicated all of their nests. Some days that’s what Yuuri does instead of supply runs. His sword and his guns act as the pesticides for this particular, insidious strain of vermin. 

The bridge keeps most away, but not the ones already close.

Yuuri grabs a gun, and quietly as he can bolts to the intruder. The lights stay off as a conservation practice, and Yuuri sees in the dim remnants of sundown a woman who is tall and willowy with long, brown hair. She tosses sticky, waist-length strands off her face, and her eyes are red and hemorrhaging. Her mouth is the same, just like all the rest. 

Minako was never accounted for earlier, Yuuri realizes as he stares at her from across the room. She must not have made it home the night before, and they ignored their own rules about head counts. No one did a bed check, and the last mentor Yuuri has in Japan will pay for it. He can’t pull the trigger tonight. His brain sends the nerve impulse, but his body blocks the signal. 

The gun is taken from his trembling hands, and the person shoots her clean through the throat as well as both of her femoral arteries. She drops and twitches like a dying spider, but her blood flees her body so quickly she's gone within a minute.

“Your ballet instructor, right?” Victor asks. Oh. He shot her. “Yuri Plisetsky and I had to do the same with Yakov. I later had to with Yuri.” Victor recites the words like he’s in a spelling bee: flat, too-slow, too much emphasis. He opens the chamber and checks the extended clip. “Fourteen left.” 

The clip holds twenty-six.

“Thanks,” Yuuri says. There’s commotion, the rounds going off having attracted the others. Takeshi verifies Minako’s gone, he and Mari put on the gloves and rebreathers to burn her body out back. They don't extinguish the blaze when they return inside with grim expressions, and Mari grabs a bottle of Minako's favorite shochu, taking it to her room with a slow walk alone. 

Fire, like the bridge, keeps them away. If Minako had been sent as a search dog for the others, they’ll stay away for a while. 

For a while, not forever.

Victor leads Yuuri back to bed, and he tucks them both in with Makkachin pacing by the door. The shots rattled her tenuous feelings of safety. Yuuri faces away while Victor rubs his back, and then he rolls over into him, his face buried in a too-sharp collarbone from running far too hard for much too long. 

Maybe Victor isn't too soft. Maybe he’s only soft in ways that they can handle. However long they can make it…however long they’ve got left…maybe they can manage a little joy, after all.

The next day, the sky is magenta-purple instead of scarlet and crimson.

_I think there’s a flaw in my code…these voices won’t leave me alone._  
_And all the people say…_  


**Author's Note:**

> LET US PRETEND some kind of shitty government org or whatever, we'll pick some rando country like IDK New Zealand*, engineered a biological weapon that uh went oops and spread before quarantine. LET US ALSO PRETEND that world governments panicked and decided to just be like "lol whoops" in their cushy steel bunkers drinking hoarded champagne while the world died, laughing alone with their salads.
> 
> Hi that's this AU if you were more curious about the world-building.
> 
> Also sorry about Axel, Lutz, the Katsuki parents, Minako, Yakov, Yurio, etc etc etc. :C
> 
> I'm on Tumblr at sinkingorswimming and Twitter at sink_or_swim!
> 
> *Karl Urban knows what he's done.


End file.
